In a classic study entitled The War for Talent, it was found that HR professionals spent a great deal of their time formulating and managing the HR policies and practices, such as recruiting, selecting, training, performance appraisal and compensation in a more traditional, administrative manner. While this can be important in managing human resources generally, their effectiveness in managing global talent management initiatives results from being linked with the firm’s strategies and directions and with the firm’s talent strategy. ‘‘HR underperforms in companies where its capabilities, competencies, and focus are not tightly aligned with the critical business priorities’’. Thus HR professionals contribute more when the HR policies and practices are closely aligned with the firm through a thorough understanding of the strategy and direction of the firm.